“Say less,” he murmurs, scooping me up. “Do you have an ice pack, Ryder?”
“Freezer. Take it with you,” Ryder grunts, throwing dead bodies onto the trailer attached to his motorcycle. “We got this.”
“Thanks,” Lore says, his legs already moving. “Did you hit your head at all, Marie?”
“No, why?” I ask.
“Then you can take a nap in the car. We’re going to be getting home late, and I want to get in to see someone before we go to bed.”
“I love an alpha with a plan,” I say tiredly, sliding onto his bike once he sets me on my feet.
Ransom hands me my helmet, and my pack is getting on the bikes around me.
Fuck me if today was way more than I bargained for.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Marie
“Can I say that I strongly advise against high speed motorcycle chases for the rest of this pregnancy?” Dr. Royal asks, scrubbing his face before pulling on a pair of gloves.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say sarcastically.
“Sorry,” he mutters, grabbing the ultrasound cart and sitting beside me. “You lead a very interesting life.”
“While it was a calculated decision, the end result wasn’t planned,” Lore grunts from the wall.
“I would hope not.”
“Bubble wrap isn’t an option,” Ransom says. “I refuse to put Marie in a cage because she’s pregnant or if there may be danger. That’s not love.”
Storm releases a deep, uncomfortable breath from where he’s hunched over watching me, and I raise my hand over my head to get his attention. I changed into a sweatsuit for the drive home, and that’s what I’m wearing now. Except, for the first time in a long while, the clothes actually belong to me.
They recently took me on a shopping trip in the city to refill my closet, and I now love everything inside of it. While there will always be times when I want to wear their clothes instead of mine, at least now it’s not due to a lack of my own.
Storm gets up to stand behind my head to hold my hand, and Dr. Royal begins to explain what he’s doing. He asks for permission before pushing up my sweatshirt and pulling my waistband down to expose my lower stomach, and even reminds me that the ultrasound jelly will be cold.
I’m pretty sure he’s doing this so none of my alphas will shoot him over a misunderstanding, but I appreciate the normalcy of it. I used to fill in for the maternity ward periodically when they were short staffed, so I know how these appointments work.
“Let’s find a heartbeat,” Dr. Royal murmurs, almost in prayer.
I find my eyes closing as he begins to move the Doppler over my skin, and Storm has to tap my chest twice to remind me to breathe. It’s a wordless command, one I find myself following without thinking. The sound of the fetal Doppler abruptly changes from the whomp-shush as it passes over my placenta to the thumping of a heartbeat as Dr. Royal finds my baby, and I gasp in a sob as I open my eyes.
“Baby is perfect,” Dr. Royal says softly, his eyes on the monitor. “They’re growing at the right pace, and I don’t think you need to worry. Watch for spotting just in case, call me if you want, you know the drill.”
I laugh through my tears because while his tone has a “business as usual” cadence to it, it’s rare that he offers his number to anyone.
“Congratulations,” he says. “Babies are very resilient, and so is Marie. I doubt bubble wrap will be necessary.”
Storm cracks a smile, bending over to kiss my temple. A tear that isn’t mine splashes onto my skin, and when I glance overat my alphas against the wall to check on them, they are also crying.
Wilder doesn’t even bother to wipe them away, his eyes on the monitor as he watches the tiny squiggles where our baby is. The air is charged with emotion, and I can feel it through my bonds as well.
Royal carefully cleans off the ultrasound gel on my stomach and puts the ultrasound wand away before looking over at me.
“Take a few weeks off from the hospital,” he says. “There’s no way you’ll be able to walk on your ankle anyway. In fact, we’re going to x-ray it now.”
“Adrain,” I groan. “It only hurts because I fell on it when I was thrown off the bike.”
